The Providence Regional Cancer Partnership has $10.8 million of technology to treat cancer. Here are some of the main features.
PET/CT machine
Positron Emission Tomography is used to detect cancer, determine its size and where it is, and judge how a patient is responding to treatment. Cancer will appear brighter than normal tissue on the PET images.
“It’s almost like ‘X marks the spot’ to show where the tumor is and where the cancer may have spread” said Dr. Will Wisbeck, medical director of radiation oncology. “If the PET scan shows a hot spot, you’d know there was a cancer there.”
Linear accelerators or radiation machines
These machines have enhanced technology precisely guiding radiation, Wisbeck said. Used to treat a variety of cancers, it is the most commonly used device for external radiation treatments for cancer patients. It delivers high-energy X-rays to the region of the patient’s tumor. These X-rays can destroy cancer cells.
TomoTherapy
Costing $3.25 million, it is the single most expensive machine in the cancer center.
It combines CT imaging and radiation treatment technologies in one machine. The machine is so specialized that it will only be used on 20 percent to 25 percent of cancer patients, mostly prostate cancer and cancers in the head and neck, Wisbeck said.
The machine allows doctors to take a CT scan just before each treatment, because cancers can shrink during treatment.
A three-dimensional alignment is made to precisely direct the radiation. Tomotherapy is a “monumental leap forward in both the targeting and delivery of radiation,” Wisbeck said.
Brachytherapy
Radioactive seed-sized implants typically are placed directly inside the body inside or near a tumor.
Often used to treat prostate, cervical and endometrial cancers. They typically remain in the body because their cancer-treating qualities are only active over a few months.
In some cases, with high dose radiation, they remain in place only for a few minutes, and then are taken out again, Wisbeck said.
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